Grand Jct. reacts to Obama - 1

Editor: Colorado bloggers captured insights you didn't see in MSM when the President brought his health care pitch to Grand Junction on Aug. 15. This report by a "Donna" was forwarded by our friend Norm Froman. ================================

Well, I’m sure you have heard the Western Slope is being subjected to a visit from White house royalty. If ever there was a mockery of Tax payers’ money it is this one.

I turned on Fox News around 4:30 to catch some of it. I could only manage to watch one thundering round of standing ovation. Talk about a staged showing.

They are using our largest High School for the so called Town Hall meeting.

As of last night NO ONE was allowed in the Bookcliff mountain range. That is the mountain range that borders our Airport. As of a certain time they will totally closing down the business loop of I-70 and it will remain closed until they have him out of here. State Police are everywhere.

The Conservative Alliance held a huge rally in one of our parks this morning at 10 a.m. We went to it.

Pictures of the rally are shown on the GJ Sentinel site. I am guessing there was close to 3-4 thousand there. They had many speakers. One was Josh Penry, who will be running for Colorado Governor in 2010.

One speaker asked for a show of hands of those that requested a pass to get into the high school for the town hall meeting. I would say that about half of all present had requested a pass. A total of 4 out of all that raised their hands received a pass.

The Conservative Alliance requested many passes and they were only granted a total of 4. Joel and several of his friends requested pass and they have yet to hear anything back.

Then we were informed that if we wanted to stand outside the High school with our signs we would have to park in the neighborhoods on the outskirts of the school because the DNC had rented all available parking space near the school. Chartered bus loads are coming from Denver. So how is this representative of the Western Slope . . . who did not vote for Obama?

It doesn’t take an Einstein to see how this deck is stacked.

Back in the Fall when Obama came here to campaign he was outdoors at a local orchard. They said there were 3 thousand that turned out.

We later learned they bused in bus loads of Democrats from Denver and Salt Lake City to the tune of 2000. So that leaves about 1000 locals from the Valley.

Sarah Palin had an estimated 28,000 turn out to hear her in the largest outdoor arena that Grand Junction has. . . tells you how the Western Slope leans . . . but what the world will see at this carefully orchestrated town hall meeting is something quite different than the truth. It has Obama’s name written all over it.

Is there no end to the Chicago thuggery?!

-- Donna

CUT scores JBC's Lambert at 100%

The Colorado Union of Taxpayers, a non-partisan group advocating for taxpayers, has released its 2009 CUT Ratings of the Legislature, announcing Taxpayer Champions and Guardians, those Legislators voting most often in favor of the taxpayer. Earning Senate Champions with scores of 97% were Republican Senators Dave Schultheis and Bill Cadman, Colorado Springs.

House Champion Representative Kent Lambert, Colorado Springs, scored 100%. Lambert was named by Minority Leader Mike May on Sunday to fill the Joint Budget Committee seat left vacant by Rep. Don Marostica's recent appoint to Gov. Ritter's cabinet.

Senator Kevin Lundberg, Berthoud, scored 91% ranking him Senate Guardian. House Guardians are Representatives Cory Gardner, Yuma, candidate for US Congress, and Jerry Sonnenberg, Sterling, with scores of 90%.

Nine Senators tied for big losers earning 3.13%, while Representative Su Ryden is the House loser at 0%. Governor Ritter scored 9%.

Another "F" for the Legislature. The Legislature continues to pass bills which re-distribute dollars to special interest groups, increase fees, raid cash funds, eliminate spending caps, and attack your liberty!

Says CUT President, Marty Neilson, "The Colorado budget crisis which we hear about at every turn, is a budget for 2009/2010 that is 2.6% higher than the prior year! What crisis? In an economic downturn when Colorado citizens must tighten their belts, government must be expected to do the same."

"TABOR, the taxpayers' bill of rights, continues to win support from Colorado voters and can be credited for protecting Colorado from the real budget woes being exprienced in California."

The Colorado Union of Taxpayers (CUT) is a non-partisan taxpayer activist group whose mission is to help educate the public as to the dangers of excessive taxation, regulation, and government spending, thereby encouraging the reduction of taxes, regulations, and government spending.

Visit www.coloradotaxpayer.org for the full 2009 Ratings Report.

Ritter learning too slowly on budget

Grappling with declining state revenues makes for some very unpleasant budget choices, as Gov. Bill Ritter and the Democrat majorities in the state legislature learned over the past 12 months. It's fair to criticize those choices, including the governor last year denying for several months that a problem existed. Yet anyone who has shouldered the responsibility of balancing a budget during a recession understands that learning from your own mistakes is inevitable.

Learning, however, is essential - both to sound fiscal policy and to political credibility. That's why it was astonishing to hear Ritter and leading Democrats dismiss the need for a special session of the legislature on the very day they acknowledged that the state will start the new fiscal year nearly $400 million in the hole.

Anticipating further economic deterioration, legislators gave Ritter the authority to "borrow" up to $500 million from next year's budget to pay this year's bills. Based on new projections by Legislative Council economists, about half that amount will be needed.

Moreover, legislative economists forecast tax revenues for the new budget year, beginning July 1, to be $135 million less than budgeted and $874 million short over three years. Those economists prudently expect the recession to continue into 2010 in Colorado and foresee possible recovery "at least a year after that."

That's the point at which this scenario takes on an incredible aura of déjà vu.

Economists in the Governor's Office of State Planning and Budgeting (OSPB) paint a much brighter picture, forecasting a recovery later this year. That outlook enables OSPB to expect an additional $1.3 billion to spend over the same three-year period.

Last September, Legislative Council sounded the alarm early enough for the governor and legislature to call a special session just three months into the fiscal year - ample time to revise the budget and mitigate the shockwaves to affected programs and participants.

Instead, the governor boldly proclaimed, "One of (the forecasts) is pretty significantly wrong," and according to the Denver Post, he "made it clear" that the error wasn't in the projections from his office. Days later when the Wall Street financial crisis struck, Ritter ordered a "hiring freeze" which, it turns out, wasn't nearly as frigid as advertised.

In December, with half of the fiscal year passed, Legislative Council pegged the budget shortfall at $631 million. Ritter's OSPB forecast a mere $70 million deficit. Two weeks later, OSPB admitted it had used "outdated information" and issued a new estimate of $230 million in red ink.

By the time the legislature convened in January, the remaining choices were severe cuts, exacerbated by months of inaction, or accounting gimmicks that postponed the day of reckoning and made balancing the 2009-10 budget even more difficult.

Choosing to procrastinate, legislators tried yet another dodge by attempting to extort $500 million which employers had paid into the state's fund for injured workers. Then they wiped away budget caps that restrain spending in good years - as if that would somehow create more money amid a withering economy.

Finally, after raiding trust funds, re-imposing a property tax on senior citizens, and accepting a federal bailout, they proclaimed the budget balanced.

With prescience, Republican leader Sen. Josh Penry observed, "This budget will be out of balance on June 20."

And so it is.

Incredibly, Governor Ritter and Democrat legislators seem headed for another year of budgetary brinksmanship, placing all their bets on a quick economic recovery.

For five years, Democrats have controlled the legislature and for three years the governor's mansion. Colorado taxpayers are right to expect that, after blundering through a year of budgetary mayhem, Ritter and Company will learn from the past and make prudent choices this time.

On July 4, a sense of place

(Denver Post, July 5) In lieu of fireworks, a cannon boomed at sunrise and sunset over Lewis and Clark’s campsite on a Missouri River tributary in present-day Kansas on July 4, 1804. They drank a toast and named the place Independence Creek. It was the first-ever Fourth of July celebration west of the Mississippi, writes Stephen Ambrose in Undaunted Courage. This weekend, 233 years after the Declaration of Independence claimed for Americans our “separate and equal station… among the powers of the earth,” the Colorado map abounds with reminders of the nation’s heroes and heritage. We overlook them amid the daily routine. Let’s note a few examples and think about why they matter. Colorado was at first part of Kansas Territory. We were later called Jefferson Territory, commemorating the man who authored the Declaration, bought the vast West from France, and dispatched Lewis and Clark to explore it. Jefferson County is all that’s left of that, though a town in South Park also bears his name.

Independence was a mining camp between Leadville and Aspen. It’s gone, but mighty Independence Pass remains, great for summer snowball fights when we were kids. Independence Street traverses Jefferson County, a hundred blocks west of Washington, Adams, and Madison streets. Other Denver streets honor Franklin and Jay, Jackson and Lincoln, Grant and Sherman. Up the Platte there’s also a Mt. Sherman and a town of Grant.

But as for the community where I live, “there was no Centennial,” James Michener assures us in his 1974 novel by that title. No, in pioneer days there wasn’t, but since 2000 there has been. Life imitates art. Colorado’s moniker as the Centennial State, of course, came with our statehood year of 1876, a century after the original Glorious Fourth. Town names logically followed, first fictional, then real.

Lest this historical ramble seem too lofty, we can also recall the old Centennial Racetrack near Littleton, where, if nothing politically profound occurred, at least liberty and the pursuit of happiness flourished. And for the Michener fans, we’ll note that a road in Douglas County bears the name of his imaginary Venneford Ranch. An Aurora restaurant even enshrined his trapper Pasquinel.

All quite diverting, but proving little, you say. What’s in a name anyway? Cinderella City once sat astride Jefferson Avenue in Englewood, after all. What is history, you’ll scoff with Napoleon (he of the astute Louisiana land sale, three cents an acre), but “a set of lies agreed upon.” Or blunter still, you’ll say with Henry Ford that history is bunk. But as an American and an heir of Western civilization, I’ll say it’s not.

Listen to the land. Get past the nondescript stuff, tune out the schlock, and you’ll hear Colorado place names echoing with inspiration from something new and special for human freedom that began in 1776 and hasn’t stopped yet. It has continued through 1787, 1815, 1863, 1876, 1917, 1941, 1964, 1989, 2001, and right to our own day when Navy Seal Danny Dietz was memorialized with a statue and a president was nominated at Mile High.

To look lovingly at the map of our state is to know Faulkner’s wisdom that “the past isn’t dead; it isn’t even past.” Our past is present and our past is good. It elevates and nourishes us. Barack Obama talks about remaking America, transforming America, laying a new foundation. He’s welcome to try, but a lot of us will resist fiercely for the reasons indicated here.

Make her better, yes; but honor her, celebrate her, cherish and guard her above all. The heart’s blood of generations mapped her. The truer our sense of place, of history, of destiny – the sweeter our Independence Day.

Ritter policies mirror Obama's

Monday headlines in newspapers across the nation proclaimed, “Conservatives score big wins in European Union parliament voting in France, Germany and many other nations.” But this is the opposite of what is happening in the United States as our government appears to be rushing toward an ultra liberal, socialist (or dare we say Marxist agenda) faster than a soft ice cream cone drips onto the hands of a child on a 100 degree summer day in middle America.

And it doesn’t stop in Washington, D.C. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter in his 2006 campaign (and United States Senator Ken Salazar in his 2004 campaign, for that matter) “ran to the right” with a somewhat non-offensive, mild agenda. With no record to run on they both appeared to be palatable candidates to many. What followed in the ensuing years, by any definition and to their detriment, was a liberal, far left agenda and list of accomplishments that would make Marx, Joseph Stalin, Lenin and Hugo Chavez proud. One historical internet reference to socialism suggests that ‘Socialism, to Marxists, is simply the transitional phase between capitalism and a higher phase of communist society.’ Is that the direction you want our State or our Country pursue?

Early this year, and again last week, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said that he hoped that President Obama would fail. Liberal members of Congress fell all over themselves rushing to open microphones provided by willing media and stating their outrage as to how Limbaugh could wish such a thing upon our President. But we know it was not a personal attack on our president but, rather, Rush’s opinion that President Obama’s policies will destroy this nation. He is entitled to his opinion.

The sad reality is that within his first twenty weeks as President, Mr. Obama’s actions have created a tectonic plate shift perhaps one hundred times greater than the history making 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake with regard to the long-lasting effect in will have on our nation’s economy. Additionally, more than one million lives were lost between the Shaanxi, China 8+ magnitude earthquake of 1556 A.D. (830,000) and the December 26, 2004 Sumatra 9.1 magnitude earthquake (227,898). Yet the economic disaster being crafted by current Administration policies and actions in Washington, D.C. will negatively affect the lives of tens of millions of U.S. citizens for generations to come.

The late Dr. Adrian Rogers (1931-2005) observed "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

Americans voted for “the change we need,” and the change we have experienced in the last four months is more than enough to send our collective heads spinning…and more than enough for a Hollywood producer to consider a remake of “Poltergeist.”

In our own backyard, in Colorado, many are paraphrasing Mr. Limbaugh’s remarks by hoping that Governor Ritter, or to be clear his agenda, will fail. Running to the right in 2004, legislating from the left since, and now beginning his 2010 re-election efforts from the middle as a moderate, makes it quite clear that he is the consummate politician…speaking out of both sides of his mouth. While some would suggest this is fraud it is, in the very least, disingenuous. Governor Ritter’s movement on his political positions gives new meaning to "Where in the world is Waldo,” or more recently “Where in the world is Matt Lauer?” Where in the world is Governor Ritter?

Former Colorado State Senate leader Mark Hillman, in the June 8, 2009 edition of Capital Review observation of President Obama stated “His actions, as well as his words, betray him.” The same can be said for Governor Ritter and his cronies and their out-of-control, reckless and irresponsible spending habits.

In 2009: · Governor Ritter and his cronies eliminated the Senior Property Tax Exemption for approximately ten percent of the population, or 450,000 senior citizens. · Governor Ritter and his cronies created a brand new State Fee on Marriage License applications of $20, for NO services rendered; this to be added to the $10 fee a county office gets for providing the service. · Governor Ritter and his cronies created a brand new State Fee for late vehicle registrations. Previously counties could charge up to $10, one time, for late registrants. Now the State wants up to $90 more for late registrations. · Governor Ritter and his cronies raised motor vehicle fees for everyone. · Governor Ritter and his cronies have created a new surcharge for roads and another for bridges. · Governor Ritter and his cronies have forced through a green vehicle bill. I prefer white or silver vehicles. · Governor Ritter and his cronies have passed a bill to eliminate the ability of any vendor to retain any amount of state sales tax revenues to compensate for the vendor’s expenses incurred in the collection and remittance of the tax revenues to the state. · Governor Ritter and his cronies believe illegal immigrants are ‘entitled’ to in-state tuition, and · Governor Ritter and his cronies repealed the long-standing state measure which placed a 6 percent annual growth limit on appropriations to the state’s general fund with excess monies diverted to two spending areas. This, to many, destroys The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), passed in the early 1990s, which took tax-increasing authority away from the Legislature and gave it to the voters. Voters down in El Paso County should note that Senator John Morse was the bill’s primary sponsor.

The list of irresponsible spending and fee happy legislation goes on and on.

It is also worth mentioning that Governor Ritter’s hand-picked Chairman of the 2008-2009 Election Reform Commission said in November 2006 that “access to the ballot for everyone is more important that determining their eligibility to vote.” Really? Really.

The fabric of our great nation is being destroyed in a matter of months as surely as the original American Flag by Betsy Ross has deteriorated over the last 233 years. Thankfully, our flag has been restored and now resides in the National Museum of American History, one of the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. We can only hope that our nation, too, can be saved.

President Obama and Governor Ritter, your reckless spending spree and policies are killing us.